Aristotle's Discovery of the Human

Aristotle's Discovery of the Human PDF Author: Mary P. Nichols
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268205442
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human offers a fresh, illuminating, and accessible analysis of one of the Western philosophical tradition’s most important texts. In Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human, noted political theorist Mary P. Nichols explores the ways in which Aristotle brings the gods and the divine into his “philosophizing about human affairs” in his Nicomachean Ethics. Her analysis shows that, for Aristotle, both piety and politics are central to a flourishing human life. Aristotle argues that piety provides us not only an awareness of our kinship to the divine, and hence elevates human life, but also an awareness of a divinity that we cannot entirely assimilate or fathom. Piety therefore supports a politics that strives for excellence at the same time that it checks excess through a recognition of human limitation. Proceeding through each of the ten books of the Ethics, Nichols shows that this prequel to Aristotle’s Politics is as theoretical as it is practical. Its goal of improving political life and educating citizens and statesmen is inseparable from its pursuit of the truth about human beings and their relation to the divine. In the final chapter, which turns to contemporary political debate, Nichols’s suggestion of the possibility of supplementing and deepening liberalism on Aristotelian grounds is supported by the account of human nature, virtue, friendship, and community developed throughout her study of the Ethics.

Aristotle's Discovery of the Human

Aristotle's Discovery of the Human PDF Author: Mary P. Nichols
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268205442
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human offers a fresh, illuminating, and accessible analysis of one of the Western philosophical tradition’s most important texts. In Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human, noted political theorist Mary P. Nichols explores the ways in which Aristotle brings the gods and the divine into his “philosophizing about human affairs” in his Nicomachean Ethics. Her analysis shows that, for Aristotle, both piety and politics are central to a flourishing human life. Aristotle argues that piety provides us not only an awareness of our kinship to the divine, and hence elevates human life, but also an awareness of a divinity that we cannot entirely assimilate or fathom. Piety therefore supports a politics that strives for excellence at the same time that it checks excess through a recognition of human limitation. Proceeding through each of the ten books of the Ethics, Nichols shows that this prequel to Aristotle’s Politics is as theoretical as it is practical. Its goal of improving political life and educating citizens and statesmen is inseparable from its pursuit of the truth about human beings and their relation to the divine. In the final chapter, which turns to contemporary political debate, Nichols’s suggestion of the possibility of supplementing and deepening liberalism on Aristotelian grounds is supported by the account of human nature, virtue, friendship, and community developed throughout her study of the Ethics.

Aristotle's Ethics

Aristotle's Ethics PDF Author: Hope May
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441103368
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the topic of human happiness. Yet, although Aristotle's conception of happiness is central to his whole philosophical project, there is much controversy surrounding it. Hope May offers a new interpretation of Aristotle's account of happiness - one which incorporates Aristotle's views about the biological development of human beings. May argues that the relationship amongst the moral virtues, the intellectual virtues, and happiness, is best understood through the lens of developmentalism. On this view, happiness emerges from the cultivation of a number of virtues that are developmentally related. May goes on to show how contemporary scholarship in psychology, ethical theory and legal philosophy signals a return to Aristotelian ethics. Specifically, May shows how a theory of motivation known as Self-Determination Theory and recent research on goal attainment have deep affinities to Aristotle's ethical theory. May argues that this recent work can ground a contemporary virtue theory that acknowledges the centrality of autonomy in a way that captures the fundamental tenets of Aristotle's ethics.

Bridging the Gap between Aristotle's Science and Ethics

Bridging the Gap between Aristotle's Science and Ethics PDF Author: Devin Henry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107010365
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores the extent to which Aristotle's ethical treatises employ the concepts, methods, and practices developed in his 'scientific' works.

Aristotle's Anthropology

Aristotle's Anthropology PDF Author: Geert Keil
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107192692
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first collection of essays on Aristotle's philosophy of human nature, covering the metaphysical, biological and ethical works.

Aristotle on the Human Good

Aristotle on the Human Good PDF Author: Richard Kraut
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691225125
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which equates the ultimate end of human life with happiness (eudaimonia), is thought by many readers to argue that this highest goal consists in the largest possible aggregate of intrinsic goods. Richard Kraut proposes instead that Aristotle identifies happiness with only one type of good: excellent activity of the rational soul. In defense of this reading, Kraut discusses Aristotle's attempt to organize all human goods into a single structure, so that each subordinate end is desirable for the sake of some higher goal. This book also emphasizes the philosopher's hierarchy of natural kinds, in which every type of creature achieves its good by imitating divine life. As Kraut argues, Aristotle's belief that thinking is the sole activity of the gods leads him to an intellectualist conception of the ethical virtues. Aristotle values these traits because, by subordinating emotion to reason, they enhance our ability to lead a life devoted to philosophy or politics.

Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates

Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates PDF Author: Ronna Burger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226080544
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
What is the good life for a human being? Aristotle’s exploration of this question in the Nicomachean Ethics has established it as a founding work of Western philosophy, though its teachings have long puzzled readers and provoked spirited discussion. Adopting a radically new point of view, Ronna Burger deciphers some of the most perplexing conundrums of this influential treatise by approaching it as Aristotle’s dialogue with the Platonic Socrates. Tracing the argument of the Ethics as it emerges through that approach, Burger’s careful reading shows how Aristotle represents ethical virtue from the perspective of those devoted to it while standing back to examine its assumptions and implications. “This is the best book I have read on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It is so well crafted that reading it is like reading the Ethics itself, in that it provides an education in ethical matters that does justice to all sides of the issues.”—Mary P. Nichols, Baylor University

Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics PDF Author: Aristotle
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781539784388
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the "philosophy of human affairs;" but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we have their author's whole theory of human conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is not directed merely to knowledge or truth. The Nicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's best-known work on ethics. The work, which plays a pre-eminent role in defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. The title is often assumed to refer to his son Nicomachus, to whom the work was dedicated or who may have edited it (although his young age makes this less likely). Alternatively, the work may have been dedicated to his father, who was also called Nicomachus. The theme of the work is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, of how men should best live. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle described how Socrates, the friend and teacher of Plato, had turned philosophy to human questions, whereas Pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical. Ethics, as now separated out for discussion by Aristotle, is practical rather than theoretical, in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms. In other words, it is not only a contemplation about good living, because it also aims to create good living. It is therefore connected to Aristotle's other practical work, the Politics, which similarly aims at people becoming good. Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.

Aristotle's Theory of Bodies

Aristotle's Theory of Bodies PDF Author: Christian Pfeiffer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191085308
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christian Pfeiffer explores an important, but neglected topic in Aristotle's theoretical philosophy: the theory of bodies. A body is a three-dimensionally extended and continuous magnitude bounded by surfaces. This notion is distinct from the notion of a perceptible or physical substance. Substances have bodies, that is to say, they are extended, their parts are continuous with each other and they have boundaries, which demarcate them from their surroundings. Pfeiffer argues that body, thus understood, has a pivotal role in Aristotle's natural philosophy. A theory of body is a presupposed in, e.g., Aristotle's account of the infinite, place, or action and passion, because their being bodies explains why things have a location or how they can act upon each other. The notion of body can be ranked among the central concepts for natural science which are discussed in Physics III-IV. The book is the first comprehensive and rigorous account of the features substances have in virtue of being bodies. It provides an analysis of the concept of three-dimensional magnitude and related notions like boundary, extension, contact, continuity, often comparing it to modern conceptions of it. Both the structural features and the ontological status of body is discussed. This makes it significant for scholars working on contemporary metaphysics and mereology because the concept of a material object is intimately tied to its spatial or topological properties.

Aristotle on Human Nature

Aristotle on Human Nature PDF Author: Gregory Kirk
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350348333
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Exploring Aristotle's concept of logos, this volume advances our understanding of it as a singular feature of human nature by arguing that it is the organizing principle of human life itself. Tracing its multiple meanings in different contexts, including reason, logic, speech, ratio, account, and form, contributors highlight the ways in which we can see logos in human thinking, in the organizing principles of our bodies, in our perception of the world, in our social and political life, and through our productive and fine arts. Through this focus, logos reveals itself not as one feature amongst others, but instead as the feature that organizes all others, from the most “animal” to the most “spiritual.” By presenting logos in this way, readers gain a complex account of the philosophy of human nature.

Aristotle's Discovery of the Human

Aristotle's Discovery of the Human PDF Author: Mary P. Nichols
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268205454
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle's Discovery of the Human offers a fresh, illuminating, and accessible analysis of one of the Western philosophical tradition's most important texts. In Aristotle's Discovery of the Human, noted political theorist Mary P. Nichols explores the ways in which Aristotle brings the gods and the divine into his "philosophizing about human affairs" in his Nicomachean Ethics. Her analysis shows that, for Aristotle, both piety and politics are central to a flourishing human life. Aristotle argues that piety provides us not only an awareness of our kinship to the divine, and hence elevates human life, but also an awareness of a divinity that we cannot entirely assimilate or fathom. Piety therefore supports a politics that strives for excellence at the same time that it checks excess through a recognition of human limitation. Proceeding through each of the ten books of the Ethics, Nichols shows that this prequel to Aristotle's Politics is as theoretical as it is practical. Its goal of improving political life and educating citizens and statesmen is inseparable from its pursuit of the truth about human beings and their relation to the divine. In the final chapter, which turns to contemporary political debate, Nichols's suggestion of the possibility of supplementing and deepening liberalism on Aristotelian grounds is supported by the account of human nature, virtue, friendship, and community developed throughout her study of the Ethics.